Residency and migration service process

So we've had our residency for a year now, and we now have to prove that we've been working and have enough money in the bank to survive. So this process can be easy or difficult.

For us, so far it's turning out to be NOT difficult for us. We went to the bank and opened a ruble account - one hour and twenty minutes... Our teller was really sick, so we gave him some Dyquil. Who knows if he took it or not.

Two days later we returned to deposit enough money (that we borrowed from everyone we know) and get the official forms printed.

On Monday we're going to try our luck with the migration service to see if we can complete the process on the first try.

We'll keep you all posted

Opening a bank account in Russia

In another post, I wrote that Amy and I opened up bank accounts here in Tyumen. The hilarious part of the croft really doesn't have anything to do with culture or language errors or anything like that. W stood in line, just like any one does at the bank. We got up to the counter and showed our documents to get the process started.

The guy says, you want migration paperwork, before we say a word. So this is a good thing, because for sure we'll be getting the correct document from the bank (unlike Jim and Sally who had to return a second time for the correct form).

The funny part of our story is our clerk. He had a horrible head cold. Red eyes, runny nose, congestion, the whole bit. But he was there at work faithfully. He went to. Make photocopies of our documents and the copier was broken. It was like a scene from the movie office space. The poor guy just wanted to hit the machine with a baseball bat, unfortunately no baseball in Russia.

He finally returned with copies, I might add that I wasn't really satisfied by how he shredded our bad photocopies of our passports... He kept getting up and leaving the room to blow his nose (it impolite to blow your nose in front of others in Russia, you should go to the bathroom and snot rocket into the sink if you have proper manners..)

Anyway, we felt so bad for the guy that I offered him DayQuil that I happens to have in my backpack. We don't know if he took them, but we felt that we wanted to help him to survive his work day!

So now we have bank accounts and in two weeks we'll have our ATM cards.

Superstitions

Schuyler, one of our summer interns, did a really great job leading a discussion tonight at DClub about superstitions. It always leads to an interesting conversation and talk of beliefs.

An interesting superstition that came up tonight is "don't show it on yourself"

For example, when I talk about the surgery my dad had in 1995, I sometimes show where the scars are and how they're really large. Our friends here in Russia often gasp in surprise and say, "don't show it on yourself!"

By showing it on yourself, it might happen to YOU.

You can just swipe your hand over this spot though and blow the curse away...just don't blow it onto someone else.